Wakerz' fleet

[Machine]

As Doogie12 said, don't use saturated colors with shiny style sprites. Shape wise it does look better, also you should increase the contrast between top and bottom sections, specially since ingame, having gradients on, the difference becomes less noticeable IMO.

[Wakerz]

this is my final attempt at shading, if it doesn't work im just going to build the rest of the fleet and worry about it later. also included the files in case you want to have a crack at it and prove i'm colorblind

[Wakerz]

continuing to experiment with different sprite, weapon and ship styles i give you the ethereal experimental reasearch ship. did this as a break from the capitol ship which is proving to be a major brain drain

[Wakerz]

It is done. blech I think ill stick to small ships for now. Next to a hestia for size reference

[LongcatX]

thats maybe a little TOO big, anyways keep posting its good to see some more life in the fourms.

[Wakerz]

Well this ship is supposed to be able to combat any fleet entirely on its own, regardless of the enemy, its supposed to dwarf even flagships, i'm intentionally making it massive. btw I must give credit to Anna for inspiring me to make something this massive i was looking at his really old stuff and was like "wow if you can do that with stock sections imagine what we can do now". so thanks Anna!

[Serithi]

I really don't like that last one. It's just a big block of section spam.

[Wakerz]

which one the Ethereal or the End of days?

[Anna]

You didn't leave names for either, but I believe he means the last ship you posted a picture of in this thread. It's basically just a random pile of sections with little in the way or external or internal detail or shape.

[jwa8402]

Wakerz, three things:
1) to do something like this you need to rely heavily on shading to group sections into the 'parts' you talk about. I'm talking heavy shading, or perhaps coloring an 'engine' cluster separately from a 'reactor' cluster. Look at smaller ships, like Doogies most recent or something, that use really dark sections as internals with brighter sections over as the armor/outer hull. Do that on a larger scale and it will almost certainly look better.

2) to do that, I wouldn't suggest using shiny. It doesn't layer or group into larger 'parts' very easily because each piece has its own heavy shading. As awesome as they are, this is one of their weaknesses except maybe in the hands of the masters.

3) I know you built one section of the ship at a time but I would work on giving each a more unique shape. An 'engine' pod shouldn't necessarily blend in smoothly to the internals below or around it. Make each part stand out and have an obvious function. If you looked at Anna's older ships, you'll see what I mean even with just the stock sections. I would venture to say assemble them separately then just move them together and see what you get. But have a general shape in mind of course. Maybe even sketch out a shape and put it as the background so you keep relative scale.

Good luck!

[Wakerz]

BLAST! to the scrapyards with it then. any recomendations on which sprites to use then?

[jwa8402]

I pick out a few from most packs and almost all from others. Its really surprising which ones by different artists will fit together, but sometimes the sprites designed by one person won't work together. Just fool with stuff and see where it fits together...

[Wakerz]

hmmm, ill see what i can do, and i did notice that it was cluttered but me and my friends (who havent signed up yet but will do so eventually) are having a contest and this was going to be my entry so I figure ill finish it then store it away as an example of what not to do.

[Wakerz]

I got shading right hurray! and I think this ship is one of my best yet. the Undertaker light patrol craft.

[Machine]

Looks quite nice . Just two things, you might want to cover the core, and also try to crop your screenshots so they aren't composed of mostly blank space.